"Quantum entanglement—physics at its strangest—has moved out of this world and into space. In a study that shows China's growing mastery of both the quantum world and space science, a team of physicists reports that it sent eerily intertwined quantum particles from a satellite to ground stations separated by 1200 kilometers, smashing the previous world record. The result is a stepping stone to ultrasecure communication networks and, eventually, a space-based quantum internet."

More from the article:

"In their first experiment, the team sent a laser beam into a light-altering crystal on the satellite. The crystal emitted pairs of photons entangled so that their polarization states would be opposite when one was measured. The pairs were split, with photons sent to separate receiving stations in Delingha and Lijiang, 1200 kilometers apart. Both stations are in the mountains of Tibet, reducing the amount of air the fragile photons had to traverse. This week in Science, the team reports simultaneously measuring more than 1000 photon pairs. They found the photons had opposite polarizations far more often than would be expected by chance, thus confirming spooky action over a record distance (though the 2015 test over a shorter distance was more stringent)."

Kinetic deflection has never seemed like that good an idea to me. The coupling of the impactor's limited energy into the body seems too unreliable to induce a predictable ∆V. Worse, either an off-center impact or a heterogeneous asteroid composition seems too likely which means the vector angle of the ∆V is poorly controlled.

My favorite option is landing some sort of ion engine on the surface and using low, but relentless thrust to push the asteroid in some desired direction. It seems to offer the advantage of better control, interim feedback, and adjustment as well as a greater total ∆V over time. (Extra credit if the device can harvest dust or rock from the surface to provide mass for the thruster).

I also liked the nuclear option. What it lacks in efficiency is more than made up for in total energy.

"The 4-inch-by-13-inch detector used to produce the Science results weighs only 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms). In comparison, the world’s most famous neutrino observatories are equipped with thousands of tons of detector material."

Every phone should come with a Neutrino detector in the future. Well 4-inch-by-13 inch is almost like the old mobile phones.

I would not be surprised they in future even discover neutrinos is linked to gravity.

Development in measuring much shorter time intervals will likely also be very useful here.

The detected gravitational waves -- ripples in space and time -- were emitted during the final moments of the merger of two black holes, one with a mass about 31 times that of our sun, the other about 25 times the mass of the sun. The event, located about 1.8 billion light-years away resulted in a spinning black hole with about 53 times the mass of our sun -- that means about three solar masses were converted into gravitational-wave energy during the coalescence.

The detected gravitational waves -- ripples in space and time -- were emitted during the final moments of the merger of two black holes, one with a mass about 31 times that of our sun, the other about 25 times the mass of the sun. The event, located about 1.8 billion light-years away resulted in a spinning black hole with about 53 times the mass of our sun -- that means about three solar masses were converted into gravitational-wave energy during the coalescence.

Amazing!

That's about 300X the energy of a supernova.

(I wonder what these ripples feel like at close range? I'd assume that one would feel a rather nasty tidal gradient)

"As the physicists note, the similarity between neutrinos and gravitational waves holds even though neutrino oscillation is a quantum mechanical phenomenon that is described by the Schrödinger wave equation, whereas gravitational wave oscillation is not a quantum effect and instead is described by a classical wave equation."

also interesting

Fundamental questions in neutrino physics such as the existence of leptonic CP violation, the Majorana nature of neutrinos or the origin of neutrino masses and mixings could have essential implications in other areas of high energy physics, from collider physics to indirect searches for new physics, as well as in our understanding of the universe. This workshop aims at bringing together at CERN neutrino experts to discuss recent progress in this area. "

Quirino Majorana (same Majorana as above or different one?) did considerably very interesting lab work on gravity, that pointed towards gravity/shielding and push gravity. mostly been ignored (and tried ridiculed ), if he was on to something is hard to say. (much more details on this without the political correctness wikipedia factor in the book Pushing Gravity: New Perspectives on Le Sage's Theory of Gravitation).

"No attempts have been made to reproduce his results using the same experimental techniques. " here we have very interesting experimental results that not are consistent with standard theory, and physics community do not even try to repeat them?. Relatively cheap to be repeated (very cheap compared to LHC).

Look for and fund experiments that can confirm the established standard theory and the theory will last much longer.

(Fermi could calculate that in a few minutes -- just finished a book on him).

Indeed!

But what radiation (other than gravitational) might be released by merging blackholes? I can't help but think that rapid motions of the event horizon(s) would interact with virtual particles in the vacuum in strange ways -- maybe a surge of Hawking radiation?

"[T]he cosmology community has not taken a cold, honest look at the big bang inflationary theory or paid significant attention to critics who question whether inflation happened. Rather cosmologists appear to accept at face value the proponents’ assertion that we must believe the inflationary theory because it offers the only simple explanation of the observed features of the universe.”

Inflation does feel like it's built on a house of cards. The challenge is to trace the web of theory and empirical results to see where/how the situation might be different than assumed.

Gravity shielding or push gravity would seem easy to test just by looking at orbits of GPS satellites which surely pass through the "shadow" of the Earth and Moon with high frequency. Quickie estimates suggest that an Earth shadow effect of only 0.02 billionths of a G would distort GPS satellite orbits by a very noticeable 1 km per year.